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On the ABC’s Offsiders last Sunday, Herald journalist Roy Masters declared from a sporting worship perspective that all western Sydney needs is the Panthers, Eels and Tigers.
Apparently the second A League, team, second AFL team and additional Super rugby club franchise are not needed in Sydney’s western suburbs.
I wonder what a mock trial of Master’s journalistic standards would show? Perhaps the climatic scenes in the movie ‘A Few Good Men’ might illuminate.
Under our mock trial scene, Masters is charged with football code vilification for his rants against Australian Rules Football and his influence on two young cadet journalists who work at the SMH who were caught burning Aussie Rules posts to the ground in Western Sydney.
A concurrent second charge is based on journalistic standards where the written word has been abused and deemed full of bias, prejudice and bigotry.
We pick up the trial near the end, after the weight of damning evidence has been presented in the form of countless column inches devoted to anti-Aussie Rules paranoia.
Ben Buckley, former AFL player and administrator, now FFA CEO, is our impartial lawyer for the defence of the two naïve cadets, with John O’Neill assisting.
Buckley hammers away at Masters:
BUCKLEY
Are you a rugby league bigot?
MASTERS
You want answers?
BUCKLEY
I think I’m entitled to them.
MASTERS
You want answers?!
BUCKLEY
I want the truth.
MASTERS
You can’t handle the truth!
MASTERS
Son, we live in a world that has sports. And those sports have to be played by men with balls. Who’s gonna play it? You? You,
O’Neill ? I have a greater responsibility than you can possibly fathom. You weep for Garry Ablett and you curse the Storm. You have that luxury. You have the luxury of not knowing what I know: that Ablett’s injury, while tragic, probably saved Storm’s TV ratings. And my existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, saves rugby league.
You don’t want the truth. Because deep down, in places you don’t talk about at parties, you know you prefer rugby league.
We use words like try, tackle, chicken wing. We use these words as the backbone to a life spent defending something. You use ’em as a punchline.
I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a game who kicks goals under the guise of a sport, then question my journalistic standards.
I’d prefer you just said thank you and went on your way. Otherwise, I suggest you pick up a Steeden and play a real sport. Either way, I don’t give a damn what you think you’re entitled to.
BUCKLEY
Are you a rugby league bigot?
MASTERS
I did the job I was born to do.
BUCKLEY
Are you a rugby league bigot?
MASTERS
You’re goddamn right I am.
As Masters is led away, his wife handballs him a Sherrin and is heard to say: “sleep with that, i’s all you’ve wanted to ‘blank’ lately anyway.”
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